Transcript
My name is Chris Dubois. I am a lieutenant with the Westboro Fire Department and I wanted to talk to you about the Department of Fire Services skin cancer screening program. I have a unique story that I would like to share with you guys.
Much like all you guys I get the emails all the time about when the programs are going to happen and when they are. I don't typically pay too much attention to them but for whatever reason I noticed in April of last year a program was in my area. I was on duty that day and we were actually fully staffed so I would have the opportunity to sneak away. I signed up for the screening in the LMS and I asked the captain and he's like yeah, sure, take one of the cars. The screening was down in Stow. I ran down there for what I thought would be just a quick little skin screening and I had quite the experience there.
If you've never been to a skin cancer screening what happens is they take you in and they line you up and the doctor is using a bunk room or a secluded area in the station where they have you do the paperwork. They bring you in and you can show as much skin or as little skin as you feel comfortable with. The doctor will come in. She'll make small talk and she'll check your skin. She's looking for different spots or marks that are of concern to her. We were going through the procedure. She gets to my back and she stops making small talk and got real serious for a minute. She said, how long has that spot been on your back? I didn't know what she was talking about. She asked for my phone so I dug it out of the pile of clothes on the floor. She took a couple of pictures and showed me the spot that was dead center between my shoulder blades. She said, well, the spot is really concerning for a number of reasons. If you look at it there's no other spots on your back except for this one, it is not symmetrical, and it's changing colors. Those are three big things we look for. I'm very concerned about this and we need to get that biopsied. That was the end of the exam. I got dressed. I went out and she gave me the paperwork and she said, my office will be in touch with you within 24-48 hours. We're going to schedule a biopsy for you. This was April 12th of last year.
I walked out of there kind of feeling a little uneasy. I'm like, ok, this is kind of weird, well you know, better safe than sorry. I'm sure it's fine. Who knows if they're even going to call me for this biopsy. The very next day I got a call from Dr. Kannler's office. They said, we need to bring you in for a biopsy and can you come in on the 18th. That was less than a week from the initial skin screen. I went down to her office in North Andover and she did the biopsy. I had so many questions but she couldn't really answer them because she didn't want to talk out of place without the biopsy. She really wanted to let the test results speak for themselves. 48 hours give or take after that I got a phone call at home from Dr. Kannler and she confirmed what I actually already knew or suspected. It was skin cancer.
I went from knowing nothing about skin cancer to researching the heck out of skin cancer in a couple hours and what I learned was it comes in stages. Stage zero is early cancer and your urgency stage is five. What she detected on me was a stage zero/ borderline stage one, so it was technically in its infancy. The doctor reiterated that when she called me. She said, listen this is a textbook case of early detection. Because it was detected so early, there is a 99.9 survival rate based on what they have to do. The doctor said we needed to act quickly and do surgery. She told me to come in Tuesday.
After I got the call from Dr. Kannler, my wife came home from work. I'm like, hey remember how I had that spot? I had a biopsy and it was something. But the good news is the doctor is very confident that we can deal with this and put this behind us. Just so you know, I'm going in for surgery next week and I'm gonna be on light duty restricted for about two weeks until I heal.
When I went to talk to Chief Purcell he wasn't in. I talked to him on the phone. I'm like, Chief, this is the situation. He was like, Chris do whatever you need and the Westboro Fire Department and I stand behind you 100 percent.
Start to finish, from the day I walked in for my screen to the day I walked in for surgery was two weeks. The doctor cut the spot out of my back. There was a very large incision in my back and a lot of stitches. I was on restricted duty for two weeks.
When they took that chunk out of me and sent it to pathology, what they were looking to do is find healthy tissue all the way around in a 360 degree area from what they removed. Fortunately, the doctor called me about 48 hours after that and said, good news. We have healthy tissue all the way around. This is behind you. Focus on healing.
Moving forward, every three months now. . . I don't know the exact specifics, but because I had one spot the likelihood of me getting a second one is greater so now every three months I go to Dr. Kannler's office and I get a skin screening.
I feel fortunate that the Fire Academy's early detection program found this. I'm glad they found it when they did. Dr. Kannler says the word she uses is infancy. And that's truly what it was. It was truly a textbook case of early detection.
If I can say one other thing it is to get the screening. It's easy, it's free, they have them all over the state. There's probably a firehouse in the surrounding area where you could get it done. It takes like 10 minutes.